Tuesday 26 Jul 2005

SUDBURY LINE TRACK IMPROVEMENTS NOW COMPLETE - GOOD NEWS FOR PASSENGERS, LOCALS … AND BADGERS

Region & Route:
Eastern: Anglia
| Eastern
A £2.5 million scheme to upgrade the railway line between Sudbury and Marks Tey is now complete, delivering a quieter, smoother ride to benefit both passengers and local people. Jon Wiseman, Network Rail Route Director, said: “Most of the track on this line had been in place for many years and needed to be replaced.  The old jointed track, which causes trains to make their familiar ‘clickety-clack’ sound, has been replaced by modern ‘unjointed’ track which is quieter for people living nearby, and smoother and more reliable for passengers.” The major project began on Saturday 9 July when engineers started the massive task of removing and replacing three miles of track between Chappel and Bures stations. They also replaced original wooden sleepers with more than 7,000 modern steel sleepers and re-laid around 12,000 tonnes of ballast – the stone that makes up the track bed. During early planning stages, the project team were presented with an additional challenge, with the discovery of no less than 26 badger setts throughout the work site.  Extensive precautionary measures were put in place to protect these furry friends, including the timings of work, site boundaries and type of equipment used. Jon Wiseman added: “Protecting the environment is a very important part of our work to rebuild the railway.  Many railway lines in this part of the country run through rural areas which are home to a wide variety of wildlife.  We have developed careful working practices with English Nature and other wildlife groups to minimise any impact on local ‘inhabitants’.” The work was completed on schedule in the early hours of Monday morning (25 July 2005).

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We own, operate and develop Britain's railway infrastructure; that's 20,000 miles of track, 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations. We run 20 of the UK's largest stations while all the others, over 2,500, are run by the country's train operating companies.

Usually, there are almost five million journeys made in the UK and over 600 freight trains run on the network. People depend on Britain's railway for their daily commute, to visit friends and loved ones and to get them home safe every day. Our role is to deliver a safe and reliable railway, so we carefully manage and deliver thousands of projects every year that form part of the multi-billion pound Railway Upgrade Plan, to grow and expand the nation's railway network to respond to the tremendous growth and demand the railway has experienced - a doubling of passenger journeys over the past 20 years.

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